“Me, too!” is pretty much what President Bush’s response has been to the agenda of the new Democrat Party Congress. Not exactly what I’d call visionary, determined leadership. It’s rather pathetic when a Republican president, parroting Dem goals, makes him finally sound slightly Authentically Conservative.
Bush Signals Budget Accord
New Plan to Mirror Democrats’ Goals
President Bush promised yesterday to produce a plan to balance the federal budget in five years and challenged lawmakers to slash their special pet projects in half next year, embracing priorities of the new Democratic leadership that will assume control of Congress today…
The incoming House and Senate budget committee chairmen have set 2012 as a target for balancing the budget, and the incoming House and Senate appropriations chairmen have decided to freeze earmarks this year and introduce further restrictions on such spending items, which are often called pork.
In trying to adopt such ambitions as his own, Bush hopes to regain the initiative after his party lost Congress in November and to counter his reputation as a president who took a budget surplus and turned it into record deficits, analysts said. Bush has never proposed a balanced budget since it went into deficit, never vetoed a spending bill when Republicans controlled Congress and offered little sustained objection to earmarks until the issue gained political traction last year.
And these gems from President Bush’s article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:
I believe government closest to the people is more responsive and accountable. I believe government plays an important role in helping those who can’t help themselves. Yet we must always remember that when people are hurting, they need a caring person, not a government bureaucracy.
Wow. This from the man who has spent more and made government bigger than President Johnson did with his failed “Great Society” agenda. And then there’s this:
One important message I took away from the election is that people want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to slip into legislation billions of dollars of pork-barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by Congress…But we can and should do more. It’s time Congress give the president a line-item veto. And today I will announce my own proposal to end this dead-of-the-night process and substantially cut the earmarks passed each year.
Let me see if I understand this–before the election President Bush thought we liked secret processes, huge spending, pork in general, and Bridges to Nowhere? He needed the election to understand these things are wrong? The funny thing is, when Republicans had control of Congress, the president never made a serious sound about stopping the secret earmarks. Now he’s all over it. Sincere genius.
At a time like this, I recall a great column by Peggy Noonan from almost a year and a half ago, about President Bush’s spending, and the attitude in the White House about what they think Americans want. Her analysis of the president is spot-on and worth another read.
‘Whatever It Takes’
Is Bush’s big spending a bridge to nowhere?
George W. Bush is a big spender. He has never vetoed a spending bill. When Congress serves up a big slab of fat, crackling pork, Mr. Bush responds with one big question: Got any barbecue sauce? The great Bush spending spree is about an arguably shrewd but ultimately unhelpful reading of history, domestic politics, Iraq and, I believe, vanity.
This, I believe, is the administration’s shrewd if unhelpful reading of history: In a 50-50 nation, people expect and accept high spending. They don’t like partisan bickering, there’s nothing to gain by arguing around the edges, and arguing around the edges of spending bills is all we get to do anymore. The administration believes there’s nothing in it for the Republicans to run around whining about cost. We will spend a lot and the Democrats will spend a lot. But the White House is more competent and will not raise taxes, so they believe Republicans win on this one in the long term…
The Republican (as opposed to conservative) default position when faced with criticism of the Bush administration is: But Kerry would have been worse! The Democrats are worse! All too true. The Democrats right now remind me of what the veteran political strategist David Garth told me about politicians. He was a veteran of many campaigns and many campaigners. I asked him if most or many of the politicians he’d worked with had serious and defining political beliefs. David thought for a moment and then said, “Most of them started with philosophy. But they wound up with hunger.” That’s how the Democrats seem to me these days: unorganized people who don’t know what they stand for but want to win, because winning’s pleasurable and profitable.
But saying The Bush administration is a lot better than having Democrats in there is not an answer to criticism, it’s a way to squelch it. Which is another Bridge to Nowhere.
She couldn’t have been more right. And yes, we’ve seen where this attitude got the Republicans–a Vote to Nowhere.
UPDATE:
In Comments, Localmalcontent makes this excellent point:
“Me, too!” is pretty much what President Bush’s response has been to the agenda of the Old Republican Party Congress, too! Agreed, that President Bush hasn’t had the very best ideas in the management and the course of our country, but give credit where credit is due: Namely, to former Speaker Rep. Dennis Hastert, and former Senator Bill Frist. NEITHER OF WHOM have had a conservative thought in their lives, or a demonstrable backbone!
So-called “pork” is just a drop in the huge reservoir of spending called “entitlements”. All of this is simply a publicity stunt by the political class.
Is the White House chef named Boots?
[LOL! I heard that part of the show today, too. May be. Tammy will have to check–ed.]
Anyone surprised at President Bush’s performance as a liberal Republican will be the same people that will be touting Senator McCain or Rudy as the next Ronald Reagan…sigh…
He sounds very much like another leberal President Bush. The first one gave us the most massive set of new taxes and tax hikes in American *peace time* history! In the name of eliminating the deficit in 5 years!
I am shocked, shocked I tell you that a President named Bush would turn out to be a left winger! Just flabergasted!
I’ll take one exception to your conclusions, Tammy — then one to a remark by Ms Noonan. RE “before the election President Bush thought we liked secret processes…”: I interpret his remark to mean most of us were ambivalent to pork. RE “Bush has never proposed a balanced budget since it went into deficit…” (Noonan): Well, no he didn’t — but he did seem to set ambitious goals for reducing the deficit. I’m one of those who doesn’t see anything sacred about maintaining a balanced budget. Some of our most-vibrant economic times have been accompanied by deficits.
Now that Speaker Pelosi rules Washington, will our President EVER crawl out from under his desk where he has been curled up in a fetal position crying like a school girl for the last 4 years? I think not!
SLABBOT is correct. Bush’s record as TX guv is replete with “compromises” with Democrats. Anyone who took the time to look knew that before election day. But Bush didn’t win because he was conservative. He won, because he was, and still is, the lesser of evils. Unfortunately, the longer he’s been President, the clearer that’s become to those who didn’t already know it.
If they’d held spending increases to 6% per year instead of 9%, the budget would be balanced now. But we don’t need balanced budgets. We need surpluses to pay the debt off. Economic growth has always been the best way to grow out of deficits. Coupled with spending cuts, it can do wonders. Unfortunately, the spending cut thing has never been tried.
I see that Harriet Meirs has reisigned reportedly to make room for a counsel that is tough enough to stand up to the Democrats…and this was the person foisted on us by our poor President as a SCOTUS nominee…good grief!
“Me, too!” is pretty much what President Bush’s response has been to the agenda of the Old Republican Party Congress, too! Agreed, that President Bush hasn’t had the very best ideas in the management and the course of our country, but give credit where credit is due: Namely, to former Speaker Rep. Dennis Hastert, and former Senator Bill Frist.
NEITHER OF WHOM have had a conservative thought in their lives, or a demonstrable backbone!
[Malcontent–excellent point. While Tammy does read Comments, I’ll make especially sure she sees yours. I will also put your comment in the main post.–ed.]
This commonly held view that Republicanism = conservatism is nonsense. This has never been the case and never will be. Some ivy league elitists like to set around and call anyone not proposing an immediate balanced budget and smaller government somehow illegitimate in the Republican Party (some type of Neocon). Could I point out that Bush proposed the largest tax cut in the history of mankind and we have budget deficits because of a war and a recession after 9/11, duh. You guys great hero of conservatism, Barry Goldwater, was totally repudiated by the American people in 1964, and Ronald Reagan ran up huge budget deficits. The Republican Party has never believed in “litmus tests” for Party affiliation or for Judges (unlike the Democratic Party which more resembles a street gang than a political party). To expect a President to balance the budget during a time of war is stupid. WITH TROOPS IN THE FIELD I HOPE WE SPEND WHATEVER IT TAKES TO SUPPORT THEM AND ENSURE VICTORY, if that makes me a “neocon” to some ivy league snoot then so be it.
SteveOK – We also have a huge deficit because Bush has not curbed spending on entitlements; in fact, he has grown them larger than prior administrations. Sure, we are in a war but the federal government has spent more on No Child Left Behind than the war and passed the disastrous, squanderous medicare bill a few years ago – just to name a couple. That was a completely unnecessary move on his part. Now, we are faced with possibly allowing illegals to draw social security they never have paid into – and just think of all the housing, medical care & food stamps they will get at OUR expense!
I would also like to point out that Reagan deficits grew due to rebuilding our military after a long period of weak leadership in the 1970’s. Reagan’s tax hike in 1986 (which I did not support) was to bring the deficit down: for every dollar coming into the feds, two dollars were to be cut from spending. Guess what? The dollars sure came in, but the spending never stopped because congress can never be trusted to do what they propose.
I bring this up because it is not ‘stupid’ to expect some spending to be curbed during war. I would just like to know why you consider it ‘stupid’ to be fiscally responsible? In fact, during a time of war, I would hope we would be a hell of a lot more restrained on federal spending on these little entitlements in order to fund our troops. But no – more has just been proposed by the senate and it’s all stuff we do not need. Furthermore, if we had true leadership at the top, this war would be fought forcefully which would translate to being fought more effectively.